Inferno (2016)

Directed by: Ron Howard | 122 minutes | action, adventure, crime, drama, thriller | Actors: Tom Hanks, Felicity Jones, Omar Sy, Irrfan Khan, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Ben Foster, Ana Ularu, Ida Dervish, Paolo Antonio Simioni, Alessandro Grimaldi, Fausto Maria Sciarappa, Robin Mugnaini, Paul Ritter, Vincenzo Tanassi

In ‘Inferno’, the third Dan Brown book adaptation, we see Professor Robert Langdon (played by Tom Hanks without too much charisma) who ends up in a hospital with a head injury. He is cared for by nurse Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones from ‘Like Crazy’ and ‘The Theory of Everything’). Langdon suffers from amnesia, but in recurring fits of hell he remembers more and more of what happened before his hospitalization in Florence. When it turns out that Langdon’s life is in danger even in the hospital, he and the gracious nurse take the plunge.

Who is chasing them and why? We come across many characters who have a double agenda. Everything has to do with the death of billionaire Bertrand Zobrist (Ben Foster from ‘Hell or High Water’). He has developed a virus/plague with which he wants to make Dante’s Inferno a reality: the thinning of the world’s population, precisely to secure the future of the earth. And so another quest has been set out, taking the viewer from Florence to Venice and finally to Istanbul for the exciting (?) apotheosis.

You have to be able to take a beating from the script, because the absurd plot twists follow each other in rapid succession, but without it all wanting to get really exciting. No one is who he appears to be, Langdon’s longtime sweetheart Elizabeth Sinskey (Sidse Babett Knudsen from “Borgen”) shows up and everyone involved (the World Health Organisation, the carabinieri and an illustrious security agency headed by the charming Irrfan Khan) joins the race against the clock. Will they be able to defuse the virus in time or will all hell be poured out on humanity?

To ask the question is to answer it, unfortunately. In no way are we surprised in ‘Inferno’. Everything proceeds in the well-known pattern of its two predecessors ‘The Da Vinci Code’ and ‘Angels & Demons’. Once again, the choice for Tom Hanks in the lead role turns out to be the wrong one. The man – and you can hardly blame him – just doesn’t look energetic enough to sit through such an adventure at all, let alone survive.

Unfortunately, with ‘Inferno’ we can speak of another failed book adaptation. It turns out to be a special craft. Who will deliver director Ron Howard and protagonist Tom Hanks from this millstone around their necks? ‘Inferno’ doesn’t feel like hellfire but like gangrene. We would have liked Howard to have lit up the fire more lyrically. Despite the action here and there, it is far too obliging – and clichéd. Thirteen in a dozen. Assembly line work. The two stars are due to the convincing acting of Foster and Khan. Because if even Omar Sy (from ‘Intouchables’) hardly stands out in a supporting role? Yes, then too much goes wrong…